Fast action, credible script

Rating: 9/10 (24 March 2013)

I am a little perplexed why this film got panned and did so poorly at the box office. Interestingly, it earned a lot more overseas, so perhaps Europeans (mostly) have a different view of things? This story is not really new: in the near future, scientist (Merrick, well played by Sean Bean) figures out a way for rich people to grow clones for spare parts, who are given artificial memories and kept on an island until needed. One (Lincoln Six Echo/Ewan McGregor) becomes aware he and the others are not survivors of some global ecological catastrophe who are being saved to reproduce humanity; through a flaw in the programme that instills memories, he seems to acquire the memories of his biological matrix, a rich and dissolute motorcycle designer (also McGregor, of course) who needs a clone for an eventual liver transplant. Lincoln escapes with his friend Jordan Two Delta/Scarlett Johansson, who doesn't do so much in the movie, but looks great and does what she does best, which is to suggest a latent sexual power. The action is carried by a credible McGregor and his nemesis, a relentless mercenary Albert Laurent/Djimon Hounsou hired to bring back or kill the escaped clones. This movie has some of the best action scenes around, because they are entirely credible: Johansson and McGregor seem as lucky as they are proficient at running away from Hounsou, which keeps things believable. The science behind it also comes out as needed: we don't get the one colossal lecture about how things work (like in the older James Bond movies when Goldfinger or Dr. No reveals his plan for global domination). Sparse science is good in science fiction. The writers thankfully do not include details meant to convince us the science is real, as when a character tells the audience when cloning was invented, by whom, when, etc. Here, it is just taken for granted that trains will fly in the sky; technical achievements are balanced by a social dystopia: rich and poor live in different worlds; human life is obviously cheap (the mercenaries just shoot up anything that gets in their way), etc. Also, the movie has a lot of relatively funny but low-key parts: when McGregor's human friend Steve Buscemi chooses costumes for Johansson to wear instead of the island-issued jump suit, for example, or when McGregor-Evil Designer matrix realises his clone is running around with Johansson but is still a virgin (that sounds wrong, no insult intended to Ms Johansson; I should have said "running around with Johansson's character"). So, what's wrong with this movie? Well, the inevitable preachy ending, where McGregor/Lincoln returns to the island with Jordon/Johansson and frees the slaves, I mean, clones (Lincoln, get it?) after a showdown with evil genius Merrick, and when the mercenary reveals he "understands" oppression and changes sides. Okay, it had to end somehow, but the operatic choral ensemble as they walk off the island in their Rudi Gernreich Space 1999 jumpsuits (remember Barbara Bain?) reminds me of those 1990s British Airways commercials set to The Flower Duet by Delibes. Overall, it's as if they shot sequentially and had already spent most of their special effects budget for the earlier chase scenes. All in all, a gripping film. I especially liked that it avoided excessive preaching about clones and harvesting human beings. It lets its images (the mercenaries' indifference to human life) and its actors (such as a very convincing Bean as an evil idealist who thinks the clone technology will save more lives than it claims – not new, but Bean can pull this kind of fluff off in his sleep) communicate its message, such as it is. I think perhaps Americans expect huge casts and crews in this kind of film, but here it comes down to a dozen actors in chase scenes; strangely, it's a "talky" but low-key intellectual film despite the high grade action, so maybe this explains why Europeans seemed to like it more. Worth watching: fast paced, well acted, economic script.